Keystone Trails Association visits Clarion NCT

Some of Friday's Work

A very large work crew came to the trail in Clarion County this weekend, November 5-7, 2010.  This crew was organized by the Keystone Trails Association and included members of the Keystone Trails Association, North Country Trail Association, Rachel Carson Trails Conservancy and the Butler Outdoor Club.

On Friday, the early-comers began working at improving side hill along the Baker Trail / North Country Trail in Cook Forest State Park.  The trail in Cook Forest gets a lot of traffic each summer and needs almost constant repair and improvement.  A large section of trail was reworked and some rock steps were put in place.

Saturday was the biggest workday of the weekend.  The main project for the weekend was supposed to be an approximately 300 foot section of turnpike to allow the Baker Trail / North Country Trail to travel across a very wet, but beautiful section of Clear Creek State Forest just north of Cook Forest State Park.  So many people showed up that the crew had to be broken up into 3 separate groups to head out to different sections of the trail.  The largest group of about 20 headed up to the trail head at Maple Creek Road to work on building the turnpike.  The other two groups went to work on more side hill at two different locations in Cook Forest State Park.

The groups that went to work on sidehill in Cook Forest State Park freshened up an amazing amount of trail throughout the day.  They reworked large sections of the trail along the hillsides.  The hillsides in Cook Forest are teeming with rocks and the crews removed many of them from the tread. Some of these rocks were used to construct a handful of carefully crafted rock staircases.  Very impressive work.  The vegetation trying to consume the trail, mostly mountain laurel, was also cut back.  The reworked, rock-less tread, along with the new trimming and newly constructed staircases will make the trail very appealing for hikers who visit Cook Forest State Park next Spring and Summer.

It was awesome to have enough people on hand to complete these projects in addition to the turnpike project.  Incredible work they did on the trail in Cook Forest State Park.  The trail through Cook Forest State Park gets a lot of traffic and this work will make the trail much more memorable for those who visit it.


The crew that went to construct the newly dubbed "Baker Trail / North Country Trail Turnpike" also completed an absolutely incredible task.  A project that was estimated to take the entire weekend ended up being completed in less than 7 hours.  It was amazing to see how well the group worked together on the project.  Everyone seemed to know what they were doing the moment the work started.  And they also knew how to do it fast.

The first step in the process was to lay geotextile down on the trail.  Next, heavy 10 foot hemlock logs were brought in and laid down on top of the geotextile on both sides of the trail and staked into place.  After the hemlock logs were put in place, an army of wheelbarrows and a brand new DR Power Wagon were used to bring limestone gravel to fill in the 2 feet left in between the logs.

The gravel and geotextile for this project was supplied by DCNR since this section of the trail travels through Clear Creek State Forest.  DCNR selected the hemlock trees to be cut down to be used as the sides of the turnpike.  Dave Galbreath and Ed Scurry cut these trees down and cut them into 10 foot sections a few weeks before the project to save doing this during the project weekend.  DCNR also moved most of the gravel from the parking lot to the work site.  A DR Power Wagon that was just purchased for the use of all of the Pennsylvania Chapters of the North Country Trail Association was broken in on this project.  The DR Power Wagon was used to move the remaining gravel from the parking lot to the work site.

I know personally (LOL) that many people felt the effects on Sunday of pushing themselves so hard on Saturday to complete this huge project so quickly.  I was just a dump truck on the Turnpike.  I am sure our log trucks weren't moving so fast on Sunday.

On Sunday, there were once again three crews of workers.  These crews went out to do another 4 hours of work before heading home.  One crew went back to the hillsides in Cook Forest.  Another small group went to an area of trail approximately a mile north of the turnpike location to improve a very rocky section.  The third group returned to the turnpike area to use the DR Power Wagon to move the remaining gravel in the parking lot to fill in low spots on the trail leading up to the newly constructed turnpike.

To everyone who participated in this amazing trail work weekend, and especially the Keystone Trails Association for setting it up, THANK YOU from the Clarion Chapter of the North Country Trail Association.  We hope everyone enjoyed the weekend.  THANK YOU.  I wish I had a picture of everyone that participated for the weekend.  However, the picture below shows everyone after the turnpike project.